Four Georgia lawmakers – State Senators Brandon Beach (R-Cherokee), Greg Dolezal (R-Cumming), William Ligon (R-Brunswick), and Burt Jones (R-Jackson) (pictured above, left to right) – bucked their leadership Monday to launch a petition to force a special session of the Georgia General Assembly. They need 29 signatures to force it. Republicans hold a 34-21 seat majority.
“As the petition makes clear, testimonial and other evidence given before the Georgia Senate Judiciary Subcommittee demonstrated a systemic failure to observe Georgia election laws. Underage individuals and convicted felons registered and were allowed to vote,” stated the senators in a press release.
“People voted who were not listed in the state’s records as having been registered to vote. Voters who moved to a different county more than 30 days prior to the election and failed to re-register were allowed to cast votes. Voters registered using bogus addresses such as UPS facilities and other stores, yet their votes were counted. Ballots of individuals who were deceased prior to Election Day counted. Over and over again, ballots were counted outside the view of poll watchers or designated monitors, defying the law. Even the law itself was modified by an unconstitutional agreement which weakened signature verification requirements for absentee ballot applications and absentee ballots as set out in Code Sections 21-2-381 and 21-2-386.”
The senators claimed about 143,000 Georgia mail-in ballots are fraudulent and shouldn’t be counted.
Beach, appearing live on The John Fredericks Show, said that he has received an unprecedented level of calls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeU0GfXzum8
“I’ve been in the Senate for eight years, I’ve had my cell phone [number] on my website and on my Senate site, [and] I’ve never gotten calls [like this] before. I have been inundated with calls, texts, emails, and the constituents are upset. They have lost confidence in our voter system. We’re an embarrassment to the United States right now. You think Florida was an embarrassment in 2000? We’re the same way right now. We’ve got to fix this.”
The state senator asserted that the evidence was compelling, despite what the secretary of state’s office had to say.
“We as a legislative body can fix it, and we should. There’s nothing wrong with fixing something that was wrong, and this election was wrong. Voter signatures, drop boxes – I mean, you can just name it – State Farm Arena video. If you look at that State Farm Arena video – [Voting Systems Manager] Gabe Sterling said there was nothing wrong. I just don’t know how you see that when you see a lady take the same ballots and run them through a scanner three times. There was something wrong. We need to get to the bottom of it.”
The petition serves as a formal notification to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that an emergency exists. The senators have called for the legislature to convene on Tuesday, December 8th.
The petition claimed that any certification of electors by Kemp or Raffensperger wouldn’t align with Georgia election laws, pursuant to the legislature’s plenary power. These legislators are attempting to follow Bush v. Gore precedent, which enables state legislatures to assume the power to appoint their own electors.
Kemp has again rejected calls for a special session to investigate voting irregularities in Georgia concerning the November 3rd general election. A special session would address the consent decree that allegedly changed Georgia’s election procedures. The decree was signed by Raffensperger, Democratic activist Stacey Abrams, and the Georgia Democratic Party.
The gang of four senators argued that the consent decree is illegal and must be nullified for the runoff election.
Kemp has dismissed the notion, claiming the January 5th runoff election date doesn’t give enough time to change election procedure.
Beach, however, repudiated Kemp’s claims. He called on the governor to exercise his emergency powers by changing the election date to February 1st.
“Kemp has the emergency powers to delay the election to fix this,” Beach told The Georgia Star News. “The governor saw fit to change the date of my primary, so he has already set a precedent. The consent decree signed by Raffensperger is unlawful, and it violates the Georgia Constitution. We need to fix this and get signature matches for mail-in ballots – which is Georgia law – before the runoff. Kemp has a responsibility to do this.”
In a prepared statement, the four senators say the petition comes after the Georgia Senate Judiciary Subcommittee was inundated with affidavits. Citizens all over the state signed under the penalty of perjury that blatant election fraud occurred during the 2020 general election and the following recounts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur4vl5UTN8g
“It is such that a session of the General Assembly is being called for and convened on Tuesday, December 8, 2020, at 10:00 A.M. in order to attend to such emergency and for all purposes provided for pursuant to Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States,” their statement continued.
“We recognize our duty to move forward with this petition due to the level of fraud and violations of law which took place during this 2020 election cycle. We urge others to join us,” stated Ligon. “We need at least 29 signatures in the senate on the petition before 9 am Tuesday, December 8th, 2020. A similar petition in the [Georgia] House requires at least 91 signatures by that same time. Now is the time to call your senators and representatives to stand up and be counted on this effort to restore election integrity.”
The leadership of the Republican-controlled Georgia House of Representatives have booted the idea of a special session. Speaker David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) hasn’t endorsed it. Ralston called a session a prescription for “endless litigation” in a November statement.
Speaker Pro-Tem Jan Jones (R-GA-Milton) discharged the concept in a radio interview on The John Fredericks Radio Show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYDnQj5LQNw&t=4s
According to committee members, the testimonies presented at last Thursday’s hearing were only a portion of all the testimonies.
“We believe we have reached the point that the results of this election are untrustworthy,” stated Jones. “Such pervasive disregard for election laws by our election officials requires a decisive response. It is time for our legislative body to do its job.”
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Corinne Murdock is a reporter at The Georgia Star News and the Star News Network. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to [email protected].
